---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Podcasts:http://taughtbyapro.com/category/podcasts/http://www.speakingofanimation.com/pods/ http://ianimate.net/podcasts.htmlhttp://www.allanmckay.com/itunes/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What guys should we studie acting from?Jpsans- Gary Oldman is One of my favorite actors. The way he can completely transform his personality one role after the next is unbelieveble.-Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean is AMAZING. I would definitely check him out for his rhythm, posing, simplistic but strong expressions, and most of all timing!- Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio are top of the list for acting as well. Just incredible at their craft. They too can really change their personalities and persona very very well.

-Tatiana Maslany: If you guys get a chance (I think its in Amazon Prime as well) watch the show ORPHAN BLACK. She is absolutely amazing. She plays about 6+ rolls in it. Great Acting!-I love to watch shows like FRIEND, THE OFFICE as well... not "Oscar worthy" performances, but You have very unique and different personalities that work great together. And what I like most is that they are VERY exaggerated. Rebecca Perez- Meryl Streep and Daniel Day Lewis are my all time favorite actor. They play such different rolls and really become the characters they play. It's amazing to watch them onscreen.David StadolnyFor pushed acting and character acting I would watch Philip Seymour Hoffman, Johnny Depp and for cartoony acting Jim Carrey--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linkshttp://rustyanimator.com/memorable/

:: Why change?“Many of the rules that people find onerous and bureaucratic were put in place to deal with real abuses, problems, or inconsistencies or as a way of managing complex environments. But while each rule may have been instituted for good reason, after a while a thicket of rules develops that may not make sense in the aggregate. The danger is that your company becomes overwhelmed by well-intended rules that only accomplish one thing: draining the creative impulse.”

:: How to approach change?“Pete has a few methods he uses to help manage people through the fears brought on by pre-production chaos. “Sometimes in meetings, I sense people seizing up, not wanting to even talk about changes,” he says. “So I try to trick them. I’ll say, ‘This would be a big change if we were really going to do it, but just as a thought exercise, what if …’ Or, ‘I’m not actually suggesting this, but go with me for a minute …’ If people anticipate the production pressures, they’ll close the door to new ideas—so you have to pretend you’re not actually going to do anything, we’re just talking, just playing around. Then if you hit upon some new idea that clearly works, people are excited about it and are happier to act on the change.”

I can only share about my experience, but if animation is something you are passionate about, I would just say to start studying and practicing now. Read all you can about the principles, take an analytical look at the work that inspires you. What is it that you like about certain artists’ work? Begin to observe and sketch from life. Begin to sharpen your eye for good design and acting and asking the why questions. Why does this or that work, why am I attracted to it? And then keep that in mind when you get to work. A lot of it is just about doing it, learning by making mistakes is the only way I’ve found I’ve gotten better. So work hard. I think there’s a Milt quote where he says “You owe it to yourself and to the medium.”

Glen Keane’s work inspired me to become an animator. I still feel lucky that I found someone I could look up to, he became my hero. That sounds super cheesy, but that’s a rare thing to find and I do not take that for granted. His work, work ethic, and who he is a artist/teacher/leader inspired me and gave me something to shoot for. It helped me set goals in my life and I think that’s another thing that is very important. Set a goal, have a dream, decide now that this is what you want to do and it will give you the drive and motivation to chase after it. I don’t think I was a hard worker in high school, but when I decided that I wanted to be an animation artist, I just became obsessed , I just wanted it so bad and I started to work hard for the first time in my life, haha ! I didn’t even think I had it in me! But shooting for Disney was like shooting for the moon and I just wanted to join these artists whose work made an impact and inspired people.

Now that we’re here, I feel pretty thankful that we’re helping Disney make films that inspire people again, just like they did for me. So when you get there, make sure to pay if forward. I think that’s what it really should be about; putting great work out there into the world can totally inspire someone and change their lives like it did mine!

Good luck! Oh and I forgot one more thing…Stay humble! It’s an animator’s secret weapon!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------No, I don’t think you can guarantee success with a great attitude, hard work and persistence, but you can guarantee failure without them.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Animator Life Pros
Animation is just cool. Who doesn’t love watching it?
You’ll always have the coolest job in the room.
It allows you to be creative.
Watching cartoons and playing video games are part of the job.
The best people work in animation.
Animation is a social job, so everyone is nice and willing to help.
Our pros and rockstars are seriously down to earth and willing to teach.
Puns and dumb jokes are high humor.
We like to keep it casual.
Nailing a hard shot is crazy rewarding.

Animator Life Cons
It is frustratingly hard work at times. Like “I wanna curl into the fetal position with a tub of ice cream and cry” frustrating.
Hours can be kind of crazy at times.
People will always tell you what you do it “easy” or “a waste of time” and other stupid rude stuff that non animators say.
New software can be stupid hard to navigate.
Finding a job is so hard it’s ridonkulous.
The jobs are always in big cities for away from home.
School never teaches you enough.
You will never have faith in your own animation talent.

I know that as soon as I hit publish that I am going to think of about a million more of these, but without a doubt I think the pros outweigh the cons.

1) When you draw, you must first cleanse yourself of deep feelings, like hate, happiness, ambition, etc.

2) It’s very important to educate your hand. Make it achieve a level of high obedience so that it will be able to properly and fully express your ideas. But be very careful of trying to obtain too much perfection, as well as too much speed as an artist. Perfection and speed are dangerous — as are their opposites. When you produce drawings that are too quick or too loose, besides making mistakes, you run the risk of creating an entity without soul or spirit.

3) Knowledge of perspective is of supreme importance. Its laws provide a good, positive way to manipulate or hypnotize your readers.

4) Another thing to embrace with affection is the study of [the] human body — it’s anatomy, positions, body types, expressions, construction, and the differences between people.

Drawing a man is very different from drawing a woman. With males, you can be looser and less precise in their depiction; small imperfections can often add character. Your drawing of a woman, however, must be perfect; a single ill-placed line can dramatically age her or make her seem annoying or ugly. Then, no one buys your comic!

For the reader to believe your story, your characters must feel as if they have a life and personality of their own.

Their physical gestures should seem to emanate from their character’s strengths, weaknesses and infirmities. The body becomes transformed when it is brought to life; there is a message in its structure, in the distribution of its fat, in each muscle and in every wrinkle, crease or fold of the face and body. It becomes a study of life.

5) When you create a story, you can begin it without knowing everything, but you should make notes as you go along regarding the particulars of the world depicted in your story. Such detail will provide your readers with recognizable characteristics that will pique their interest.

When a character dies in a story, unless the character has had his personal story expressed some way in the drawing of his face, body and attire, the reader will not care; your reader won’t have any emotional connection.

Your publisher might say, “Your story has no value; there’s only one dead guy — I need twenty or thirty dead guys for this to work.” But that is not true; if the reader feels the dead guy or wounded guys or hurt guys or whomever you have in trouble have a real personality resulting from your own deep studies of human nature — with an artist’s capacity for such observation — emotions will surge.

By such studies you will develop and gain attention from others, as well as a compassion and a love for humanity.

This is very important for the development of an artist. If he wants to function as a mirror of society and humanity, this mirror of his must contain the consciousness of the entire world; it must be a mirror that sees everything.

6) Alejandro Jodorowsky says I don’t like drawing dead horses. Well, it is very difficult.

It’s also very difficult to draw a sleeping body or someone who has been abandoned, because in most comics it’s always action that is being studied. It’s much easier to draw people fighting — that’s why Americans nearly always draw superheroes. It’s much more difficult to draw people that are talking, because that’s a series of very small movements — small, yet with real significance.

His counts for more because of our human need for love or the attention of others. It’s these little things that speak of personality, of life. Most superheroes don’t have any personality; they all use the same gestures and movements.

7) Equally important is the clothing of your characters and the state of the material from which it was made.

These textures create a vision of your characters’ experiences, their lives, and their role in your adventure in a way where much can be said without words. In a dress there are a thousand folds; you need to choose just two or three — don’t draw them all. Just make sure you choose the two or three good ones.

8) The style, stylistic continuity of an artist and its public presentation are full of symbols; they can be read just like a Tarot deck. I chose my name “Moebius” as a joke when I was twenty-two years old — but, in truth, the name came to resonate with meaning. If you arrive wearing a T-shirt of Don Quixote, that tells me who you are. In my case, making a drawing of relative simplicity and subtle indications is important to me.

9) When an artist, a real working artist, goes out on the street, he does not see things the same way as “normal” people. His unique vision is crucial to documenting a way of life and the people who live it.

10) Another important element is composition. The compositions in our stories should be studied because a page or a painting or a panel is a face that looks at the reader and speaks to him. A page is not just a succession of insignificant panels. There are panels that are full. Some that are empty. Others are vertical. Some horizontal. All are indications of the artist’s intentions. Vertical panels excite the reader. Horizontals calm him. For us in the Western world, motion in a panel that goes from left to right represents action heading toward the future. Moving from right to left directs action toward the past. The directions we indicate represent a dispersion of energy. An object or character placed in the center of a panel focuses and concentrates energy and attention. These are basic reading symbols and forms that evoke in the reader a fascination, a kind of hypnosis. You must be conscious of rhythm and set traps for the reader to fall into so that, when he falls, he gets lost, allowing you to manipulate and move him inside your world with greater ease and pleasure. That’s because what you have created is a sense of life. You must study the great painters, especially those who speak with their paintings. Their individual painting schools or genres or time periods should not matter. Their preoccupation with physical as well as emotional composition must be studied so that you learn how their combination of lines works to touch us directly within our hearts.

11) The narration must harmonize with the drawings. There must be a visual rhythm created by the placement of your text. The rhythm of your plot should be reflected in your visual cadence and the way you compress or expand time. Like a filmmaker, you must be very careful in how you cast your characters and in how you direct them. Use your characters or “actors” like a director, studying and then selecting from all of your characters’ different takes.

12) Beware of the devastating influence of North American comic books. The artists in Mexico seem to only study their surface effects: a little bit of anatomy mixed with dynamic compositions, monsters, fights, screaming and teeth. I like some of that stuff too, but there are many other possibilities and expressions that are also worthy of exploration.

13) There is a connection between music and drawing. The size of that connection depends upon your personality and what’s going on at that moment. For the last ten years I’ve been working in silence; for me, there is music in the rhythm of my lines. Drawing at times is a search for discoveries. A precise, beautifully executed line is like an orgasm!

14) Color is a language that the graphic artist uses to manipulate his reader’s attention as well as to create beauty. There is objective and subjective color. The emotional states of the characters can change or influence the color from one panel to the next, as can place and time of day. Special study and attention must be paid to the language of color.

15) At the beginning of an artist’s career, he should principally involve himself in the creation of very high quality short stories. He has a better chance (than with long format stories) of successfully completing them, while maintaining a high standard of quality. It will also be easier to place them in a book or sell them to a publisher.

16) There are times when we knowingly head down a path of failure, choosing the wrong theme or subject for our capabilities, or choosing a project that is too large, or an unsuitable technique. If this happens, you must not complain later.

17) When new work has been sent to an editor and it receives a rejection, you should always ask for and try to discover the reasons for the rejection. By studying the reasons for our failure, only then can we begin to learn. It is not about struggle with our limitations, with the public or with the publishers. One should treat it with more of an aikido approach. It is the very strength and power of our adversary that is used as the key to his defeat.

18) Now it is possible to expose our works to readers in every part of the planet. We must always keep aware of this. To begin with, drawing is a form of personal communication — but this does not mean that the artist should close himself off inside a bubble. His communication should be for those aesthetically, philosophically and geographically close to him, as well as for himself — but also for complete strangers. Drawing is a medium of communication for the great family we have not met, for the public and for the world.